Category: Shit Doesn’t Work

Plex would have you thinking Van Halen once covered the complete Schubert piano sonatas. Hey, why...

First time since Christmas, 1987, that I actually wanted to listen to a podcast. This is what...

I can read enough to tell that only the young are allowed at speed dating events. Age bias is such...

I just wasted precious energy pointing the mouse at my 2 Twitter notifications so I could learn this. I am so enriched.

I have not posted to the “Shit Doesn’t Work” category in a long time, but that’s not to suggest that I have not encountered the usual daily slew of websites and software packages that do not work or otherwise fail in some respect. I just thought the category was getting kind of stupid. Earlier tonight […]

While searching in DeVincent Sheet Music (Lilly Library), Starr Sheet Music Collection (Lilly Library) an error occured: XPat startup error: 7srv/php/letrs-prod-8809/application/dlxs9/idx/d/devincent/devincent.dd’ is apparently not a valid data dictionary file. [ Mode = local, Data Host = www.letrs.indiana.edu ] at /srv/php/letrs-prod-8809/application/dlxs9/lib/XPat.pm line 259, chunk 1.  

Maybe installing this Plugable (yes, that is how the company spells its name) UGA-2K-A device was not so smart. It’s a USB 2.0 Display Adapter that should allow me to extend the computer from 2 screens to three, specifically enlisting an unused HDMI input on a giant 70″ TV set and blasting MS Word and […]

This alarming error message (with an exclamation point!) just popped up out of nowhere, offering no clue as to what prompted it.

Who knew that 212 area code numbers (available for purchase at 212areacode.com) came with something called “wordbooker_options”? ABBYY Finereader had a lot of trouble converting the second line of this text, so I typed it in. wordbooker_options: s:139:”s:130:”s:121:”s:112:”s:103:”s:95:”s:87:”s:79:”s:71:”s:63:”s:55:”s:47:”s:39:”a:1: {s:17:”wordbook_new_post”;s:1:”1″;}”;”;”;”;”;”;”;”;”;”;”;”;”;  

You would think search engines would be programmed not to publicly index server error messages, but that is what they do. The New York State of Health web site had all kinds of troubles any time I tried to use it. This search engine got the same error messages i did, and gobbled them up into […]

This looks like an error message written in the 1990s, when pagers were status symbols among techies. A pager on a techie’s belt proved they were needed, that they were valued. This message was spotted in March, 2015, at which time one hopes alerts such as this were not really being sent to pagers, as those devices were […]

  The Jinxworld Forums database has encountered a problem. Please try the following: Load the page again by clicking the Refresh button in your web browser. Open the www.606studios.com home page, then try to open another page. Click the Back button to try another link. The www.606studios.com forum technical staff have been notified of the […]

Server Error in ‘/’ Application. Validation of viewstate MAC failed. If this application is hosted by a Web Farm or cluster, ensure that configuration specifies the same validationKey and validation algorithm. AutoGenerate cannot be used in a cluster. Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack […]

Typing NYT.com in to a web browser usually sends you to nytimes.com. Not on this day. Oof. I think this was busted for a few days.

At first frustrated, I quickly decided that being blocked from my 401(k) is not such a bad thing. If I think I have legitimate reason to dip into it for any reason then this slight deterrent should provide an adequate barrier to making a financial mistake.

Your connection is not private Attackers might be trying to steal your information from www.whitehouse.gov (for example, passwords, messages, or credit cards). This server could not prove that it is www.whitehouse.gov; its security certificate is from a248.e.akamai.net. This may be caused by a misconfiguration or an attacker intercepting your connection. Proceed to www.whitehouse.gov (unsafe) NET::ERR […]

Microsoft DirectX Diagnostic Tool has stopped working A problem caused the program to stop working correctly. Windows will close the program and notify you if a solution is available. Close program

eBay’s cryptic [Error: 0] was not useful to me in diagnosing what I may have done wrong to cause this label not to print.

About.Me is usually stable, but not on this day, when it barfed up its innards and hurled one of its user’s profiles to the bottom of a mostly blank page. The headline is simply “.me”, which might have some philosophical resonance in a world whose people are increasingly defined by their online presence. Check out […]

A timeless classic from the genre of server error messages. It just never gets old.

In addition to several broken images in the header I saw that no “Begin Test” button ever appeared on this page. Intended to link to a diagnostic tool which tests the speed of my Internet connection this page instead did absolutely nothing. Select your region (if prompted) OR just click the “Begin Test” button to […]

My attempt to access content at LatinTimes.com was intercepted by this mysterious white box which did nothing and which I could not get out of the way. I closed that browser tab and moved on.

My computer was never quite the same after installing and uninstalling Vuze. It came with adware that some sources described as a trojan malware. I never completely got it to uninstall or remove itself from this computer. I have not found time to sit down and read instal4jError5673951020810554212.log, which I am sure is very enjoyable. […]

My free trial of Sprout Social did not result in me becoming a paying customer, but I did not forsake the social media company on account of their entertaining error page.

This happens a lot. Spotify for desktop is the most bloated, resource hungry application I use on a regular basis. It’s amazing how gluttonous it is when compared to its Android brethren, which is quite sharp. At times Spotify’s consumption of resource comes at the expense of the software actually working, or causing other applications […]

After several days and considerable consternation I did, in the end, get new insurance. This came at the expense of firing my dentist of 10 years and who knows what other compromises will arise. Getting to this state of mediocrity had its perils. The language on the web site was entirely unclear about a great […]

My attempt to explore Emblem Health Care’s insurance coverage did not get far. After filling in a few perfunctory bits of information (age, zip code, etc) I was sent to a page that does not exist. Or rather a page announcing that a page does not exist. I also realize I’ve been forgetting to add […]

Error 503 Service Unavailable Service Unavailable Guru Meditation: XID:745000276 Varnish cache server

This alert proved to be inconveniently untrue. An e-mail from myself to PayPal was addressed later the following day, and this erroneous notification disappeared. Good enough, but this obfuscatory notification ultimately prevented me from making a purchase, as I no longer desired to buy the product the next day after the impulse to do so had passed.

A lot of “this” in this. ‘;this.altsrc = ‘\’ ;this.callbackName ‘__dvredirect_callback_’ + this.rand;var thisRedirect = this; window [this. callbackName] = function () { return thisRedirect; };var src = ‘https://rtbcdn.doubleverify.com/bsre( callback=’ + this.callbackName;document.write(“)

VoicePulse.com is a VOIP provider. I tried to create an account with them. I failed. The “Choose a Number” screen seemed straightforward enough. Too bad all I got in return for checking “Choose a new telephone number” was an endlessly spinning circle of little circles. I e-mailed VoicePlus, politely asking WTF? That e-mail was ignored.

This amazingly comprehensive error message ends with a commercial (of sorts) advertising the Sucuri CloudProxy Website Firewall. An error page — even one which appears to pass the buck to the “backend” server — seems like an odd place to advertise anything to do with operating a website. After admitting to Sucuri’s failure to deliver […]

I haven’t seen this one in a while, but then I don’t visit Astorians.com so much these days. Once in a while my attempts to access that message board (which uses the Simple Machines Forum software) would return this strange hackeresque screen with a cryptic (i.e. meaningless) “technical support key” and an e-mail link to […]

My repeated attempts to purchase FilterForge rank among the most persistently irritating e-commerce transactions I can remember. In the end I paid the software developer directly, after as many a dozen attempts to pay via PayPal through the Digital River GmbH (Share-It) gateway. After a first attempt it took a while for me to realize […]

The exception Breakpoint A breakpoint has been reached. (0x80000003) occurred in the application at location 0x0272860b. Click on OK to terminate the program

Error We apologize for this inconvenience, but an error has been detected. The details of the error have been recorded. We will investigate the matter and take appropriate action. If you need immediate assistance, please contact our customer support department. Thank You. Copyright © 1999-2014 GoDaddy.com, LLC. All rights reserved.

RSS feed aggregators frequently grab the wrong image to complement a story’s headline. “This woman can make you rich” inappropriately  appears under a photo of non-woman Mark Zuckerberg.

The application was unable to start correctly (0xc0000005). Click OK to close the application.  

Sorry mark, we cannot proceed with your request because the system is having technical difficulties.

This server is experiencing technical problems. Please try again in a few moments. Thanks for your continued patience, and we’re sorry for any inconvenience this may cause. Error 503 Service Unavailable Service Unavailable XID:508654105

ERROR: Possible problem with your *.gwt.xml module file. The compile time user.agent value (ie9) does not match the runtime user.agent value (ielO). Expect more errors.

My first attempt at pre-registering sorabji.nyc returned this exotic suite of error conditions: 405 Method Not Allowed • Code: MethodNotAllowed • Message: The specified method is not allowed against this resource. • ResourceType: OBJECT • Method: POST • Requestld: 292520C57021903B • Hostld: X5WKbXUgOTlEcFkkRKFOru08finp85Gn5KTq5Sf7wfxttOoyOE8wBYR61apecsCSD

UPS My Choice is one of the odder failures I’ve encountered. Described as a service that would make receipt of UPS packages more flexible for residential customers I purchased a 1-year subscription a few years ago, and quickly discovered that the program had no merit. I did not renew the subscription to UPS My Choice, […]